Aaron Lewis

GuildPortal Dev Blog

Updates from Aaron Lewis, GuildPortal Code Monkey

Entries From Aaron Lewis' Blog

Mods System goes Live!

Posted 8/26/2011 2:04 PM by Aaron Lewis. 26570 reads. Share:

The new Site Mods system goes live with today's update! From the Control Panel, select Site Mods. From there, you can install them on your site, or even author new mods for others to use. A mod is any combination of HTML, Javascript, and CSS code that come together to enhance the functionality of a site it's installed on. They can be full-blown widgets, or code that makes snow fall down the screen during the holidays. They can even have configurable code so that authors can provide variables that an admin installing a mod on their site can change in order to customize how it behaves.

Widget authors can create widgets, and when they make changes, they create new revisions. Each mod (and further revision of the mod) will be reviewed by GuildPortal staff before being made available for installation (although the author of the mod may always install the latest revision, even if it's not approved, in order to test). Mods can also be given star ratings and comments by the community! After many years of awesome admins providing guides and help when it comes to extending the functionality of GuildPortal, we're offering this in hopes of making that development (and deployment) process much easier -- we're looking at you, Mottie!

Of course, for the scripters out there, the jQuery library is already available, and you can easily use it from your javascript code in your mod! Also, we look forward to providing service end-points that return JSON or XML guild data that can be easily consumed by a mod using simple jQuery get requests, and sample code to go along with it. Think of it as a light-weight API for writing your own widgets or extending GuildPortal to your specific needs, and then getting massive kudos for doing so.

Now, aside from that excitement (can you tell we're excited? huh??), we also pushed the following changes with the update:
  • Sign-ups may now be deleted by event admins directly from the sign-ups listing when viewing an event's details.
  • Aion integrated rosters are now working again.
  • Buncha other stuff for support tickets.

Support Updates

Posted 8/5/2011 10:20 AM by Aaron Lewis. 13983 reads. Share:

* Updating attendance/awarding DKP will now immediately update the totals on the Raid Point Standings widget, instead of showing cached data.
* The Silverlight gallery has been replaced with an entirely javascript gallery that has similar functionality, but does not require a plug-in.
* Animated GIF thumbnail images uploaded in your Profile settings will no longer be converted to PNGs (ripping out the animation in the process).
* Files with multiple periods in the name will now upload without error.
* Setting the URL for your banner in the General Style Settings will now save correctly.
* Saving your profile settings after canceling out of uploading a new thumbnail will no longer error out.
* The "Select from guild files" globe icon on image selectors in the control panel now works correctly with Firefox 5.

New File Storage, CDNs, and More

Posted 7/15/2011 11:12 AM by Aaron Lewis. 12221 reads. Share:

We've begun using new file storage with this update. All of your existing files are still available at their old location, but newly uploaded files will have URLs that look like /GuildFiles/[your guild ID]/[file name] instead of http://www.axiomfiles.com/[your guild id]/filename. This removes the need for your browser to determine a different host's IP (axiomfiles.com) when loading each image. While you can leave your old files where they are, you could benefit more from this change by copying them back down to your hard drive and re-uploading them. Once you have all references pointing to the old image updated, delete it to free up more of your available file space (also keeps things tidy). To help differentiate between which files you have on the old system and which you have on the new one, I've added a URL column to the Control Panel > File Manager file listing.

For yet more performance gains, we are now using CDNs (content delivery networks) from both Google and Yahoo to serve up the more common Javascript libraries we use. What makes this so great is that those services will automatically route your request for the file(s) to your nearest data center, making it very, very fast. It also takes the burden off GuildPortal, no longer needing to serve up these very common Javascript libraries, instead giving it more resources to dedicate to just your content.

Many support tickets were addressed (and small features tweaked) in this update, as well:
  • The signature generator now saves your preferences. You will no longer need to start from the beginning when using the tool.
  • The signature generator now provides links that you can use in your signatures on other forums/web sites!
  • Associates and higher are now able to upload images directly when using the WYSIWYG editor to post, and then insert that image into the post immediately after.
  • Event/Raid templates now correctly import any custom category they were saved with.
  • Clicking on an entry in the "Recent Blogs" widget will now only open the blog in a new window, instead of opening it in both your current window and a new window.
  • When editing your profile, you will no longer default to the "Casablanca" time zone. Unless that's your time zone, of course.
  • The World of Warcraft server status widget is now back and functioning correctly, now calling an API provided by Blizzard instead of parsing the old server status page.
  • In the Funds widget, guild transactions may now be entered using more than one type of currency at a time.
  • A guild in an alliance that has had a forum shared with them by another guild is now able to set one of their forums as the parent forum of the shared forum.

Many Updates

Posted 6/1/2011 12:54 PM by Aaron Lewis. 17681 reads. Share:

  • New: "Newest Members" widget now available. By default this is included below the forums on new guild sites.
  • New: "LOTRO Server Status" widget now available for Lord of the Rings Online guilds.
  • New: Fade animation for background color of grids with alternating colors for odd and even rows. Can be disabled in Control Panel > Style Tools > Content Boxes > Grids.
  • New: It is now possible to add a comment when adding a transaction using the guild funds widget (previously, you had to edit the transaction after creating it).
  • New: Setting the margins at the top and bottom of your banner image is now possible in Control Panel > Style Tools > General > Banner.
  • Updated: "Latest addition" column in the guild bank widget made wider.
  • Updated: Signups table in event view of the calendar now shown with slightly smaller text.
  • Updated: "Edit/Delete" link added to the beginning of each transaction in the guild funds widget.
  • Fixed: When importing drop from a list of previous drops for an event, the description was not being brought over.
  • Fixed: WoW Integrated Rosters were unable to parse Battle.net for EU guilds.
  • Fixed: Add New Forum window in the forum editor was appearing above the top of the editor in FireFox.
  • Fixed: When posting, the option to subscribe to replies was being ignored.

WoW Perks, Poll Charts, and More

Posted 5/6/2011 10:32 AM by Aaron Lewis. 10929 reads. Share:

A lot is included in this week's update!
  • New: Guilds with WoW Battle.net integration enabled are now able to see their guild perks from the roster. For those WoW guilds out there who do not yet have integration enabled, just click Control Panel and then WoW Integration.
  • New: Blog entries now have a FaceBook "Like" icon.
  • New: Voting polls now display charts.
  • Fixed: Event templates will now save more information and import it correctly.
  • Fixed: WoW Roster integration and WoW server status were temporarily broken due to some changes to the Battle.net site.